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Play MP3s on Playstation
Juan Fernando writes "I just noticed this newsbit over at mp3.com covering an $80 enhancement for 1st Generation Playstations that allows them to playback CDs chock full of mp3s. The product is called PSXAMP/MP3, is made by Fullway, and is currently available in Europa/Asis and soon in the US. mp3enhancer is taking preorders now."
From the pictures of the Playstation 2 that I've seen (check out playstation.com for some high-rez images), there is no "paralell port" like on the origional PlayStations... this port is what lets game enhancers, mp3 players, vcd players, etc plug into the PlayStation now. However; I would expect to see those kinds of things for the PlayStation2 after it begins to take hold. It does have firewire and usb on the front, and some kind of port on the back (PCMCIA?).
MP3 players for PSX have been out for quite a while. You can search around and find them online at places that let you order stuff from hong kong. The unit I want is one that plays VCD's -AND- MP3's -AND- has game enhancer features. Pretty neat.
jason gill.
MP3 is an encoding format. MiniDisc is both an encoding format and a physical medium. There's no reason why someone can't make an MP3 player that uses Minidiscs as the physical medium, and MP3 rather than the Minidisc native encoding. It's something I've been wanting for quite some time, now.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
This seems pretty numb... what's up with someone making a CD with an executable stub constaining a PSX-native MP3 decoder, that plays back through the standard PSX audio-out?
You can apparaently burn standard CDs to be readable on PSX, I read on USENET when researching which CDR to buy.
From the FAQ link on fullway.com:
Q: What is the potential market for the MP3 Enhancer?
A: Those who have playstation, even model of 9000.
Apparently, you *can* use it with the 9000-series PSX.
Heh heh... "I am PSX 9000 computer. I became operational at the PSX plant in Urbana, Illinois..."
Little Debian: America's #1 Snack Distro!
The whole purpose of the Minidisc, IMHO, is not rebuying your CDs, but taking your CD music anywhere with the ability to mix, etc with no worries. Most MiniDiscs players are also recorders(that's why they are expensive), so people can record tracks directly from their stereo/computer right to their MiniDisc. MiniDiscs are rerecordable too. Most MP3 players only allow you to play 40-80 minutes of music. A MiniDisc is 74 minutes multiplied by whatever number of discs you want to carry with you. If I have MP3s, I take the extra 15 minutes to expand them to AIFF and let them record to MiniDisc.
And although Sony may not like MP3, you can be sure that if people start making money off of players, they will start making MP3 players/recorders or make another music standard that they have control of. That's the way Sony likes to do it. They'll probably get away with it too, because they're Sony.
remy
http://www.mklinux.org
3 RSAC execs just had heart attacks.
434 RSAC lawyers just had orgasms.
The only real problem with that is this: People who have PCs to get MP3s probably have an MP3 player handy to listen to them on their PC. In order to use this PSX extension they'd also have to buy a burner to burn their CDs with. So after about $250.00 they can go ahead and listen to MP3s on their Playstation while I play FFVII and listen to them with GQMPEG. :)
"It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
Doesn't seem to say anything about whether or not this little gem takes care of the problem that Playstations only recognize CD's with a black surface....Does this take care of that problem? Do you still need the "ModChip" so that the playstation can read the Cds that you burn?
Stick a regular audio CD in there. Works, doesn't it? Good.
The problem isn't with the black surface. Never has been. The modchips out there are to correct a problem with the fact that you can't copy a playstation CD with most burners.
The black surface CD's have a country code on them in a place where burners almost always put something else (i'm not fully conversant with all the details). The playstation reads this, notices it's not the right country code, and voila, no game.
The modchip basically feeds it that code all the time so that it'll still read wrong, but that read data never makes it to the bit where it checks. It's replaced by the correct code.
That's also why the "swap trick" works. You put in a real playstation CD, let it read the code, then swap the cd's before it reads the rest of the cd. It's hard to time right, but can be done (i've only gotten it to happen a few times on my friends system. i don't own one.)
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- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I bought a PSX within the past month for $99 and it is the 9001 model, which lacks the parallel port. So, this thing won't work on the newer units like mine. My friend's 7501 does have the parallel port, and he bought his maybe six months ago. So, they may still be out there if you look around.
Look before you buy if you are thinking about it.
Guys, sorry to rain on the parade, but I really don't see Sony going out and supporting MP3. Why? One word: Minidisc.
Sony has LOTS and LOTS of money invested in Minidisc, and unfortunately, they seem to be about the only ones who care about the format. Consumers don't want them (I know a lot of people who hate the idea of having to rebuy their CDs; these people would probably never invest in a Minidisc recorder.) Other electronics manufacturers don't really care, since there isn't enough demand. And retail outlets can't be bothered.
MP3 is going somewhere, and a lot faster than Minidisc could ever dream. Rio sold like hotcakes, Nomad won't be bad, and by Spring we will be on the verge of REAL mp3 hardware (USB and IBM microdrive...now that would be sweet.)
In short, expect Sony to seriously lag behind everyone else when it comes to MP3.
Read up on SDMI, it uses watermarks, and the hardware checks files of all kinds for the watermarks. Copying the music from the soundcard won't help. Nor will making your own mp3s because future cds will have watermarked music as well.
Yes, this means degraded quality of cds.
Making a software player that doesn't give a fuck about the watermark is obviously easy (keep your current mp3 player) but the same cannot be said for hardware.
Maybe someone will figure out a way to strip the watermark off the file (some sort of interpolation of the music I guess), but I don't know how realistic that is...
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I've heard about this device for a while; at first I was interested but then I remembered how great listening to audio CDs is on the PSX... not the greatest thing. Really, you'd want a nice set of speakers for this, and if you're the average PSX owner you don't have them... and you don't have a CD full of mp3s hanging around the house :) :)
For me at least it'd be better to get an mp3-capable CD player, or just use mp3s on my computer
-- Your IP is showing
Need I say more? Once they start watermarking the cds, you can kiss your freedom to do whatever you like with your music goobye on any "sdmi" compliant hardware.
Hardware may be ideal for compression schemes, but its also ideal for big money/government extortion...
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